THIS IS something most people in the Bay Area probably don't want to hear today. Many fans still are mourning the elimination of the 49ers, and they now cursing the fates that have sent the Dallas Cowboys to the Super Bowl again.

Understandably, it may be difficult to endure two more weeks of the brash, chest-thumping, finger- pointing, strutting, look-at-me combination of ego and arrogance that marks America's Team.

But if we can get past all of that, put aside the style and consider for a moment the substance, a few words here are in order for the Cowboys. And they are these: Damned though they may be by the 49ers' fans, the Cowboys are to be commended and congratulated for the way they have persevered this season.

Because Dallas, you must understand, went through much of the same travails the 49ers went through. The Cowboys lost players to free agency and to injuries. They had coaches leave, they endured a slump, and they surely have had more than their share of those nasty, so-called distractions -- although many of them were self-inflicted by their owner.

In the end, however, the Cowboys were able to do what the 49ers could not do. They overcame all the problems and all the hassles, they survived the Barry Factor and fourth-and-one, and they survived an embarrassing loss to Elvis Grbac, and they won the NFC Championship, and they are going to the Super Bowl.

Here in the Bay Area, it may be fashionable to hate the Cowboys and not honor them in any form. But regardless of what happens in Arizona in 12 days, it is clear Dallas is a special team. This season, the Cowboys weren't great; in fact, no team in the NFL was. But when history measures the Cowboys' whole body of work the last few years, they will be looked on as great, the sideshows notwithstanding.

"I couldn't be prouder of this team," said Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, whose postseason performances have been as good as any quarterback who ever played. "The adversity that's been overcome makes this one better than our others (Super Bowl trips). A lot of that adversity has been self-inflicted . . . things that should have been avoided.

"And the next question is going to be, what adversity? But that's as far as I will take that."

Aikman was talking largely about the controversy that swirls around coach Barry Switzer, and around Deion Sanders and his $13 million signing bonus. But the reference also was to some of the issues that developed during the offseason and the season, and it's worthwhile to examine how they closely paralleled some of the similar difficulties the 49ers had, and could not survive:

-- Turmoil on the offensive line? The 49ers had some injuries. The Cowboys lost Mark Stepnoski, one of the game's two or three best centers, to free agency. Then his replacement, Ray Donaldson, voted to the Pro Bowl, suffered a season-ending injury in November.

-- Injuries? Sure, the 49ers lost Steve Young for a time and William Floyd for the season. In Dallas, cornerback Kevin Smith, closing in on the Pro Bowl, suffered a season-ending injury on opening night. Charles Haley hasn't played in more than a month.

-- Plus: Leon Lett was suspended for four games. Nickel back Clayton Holmes, actually a starter until Sanders showed up, was suspended for a year.

Further, while the 49ers suffered their major slump around the middle of the season and then had time to straighten themselves out for the stretch run, Dallas headed into the playoffs almost devoid of momentum after stumbling down the stretch. The Cowboys had to get their act together at the toughest time of all, the end of the season.

Starting against the 49ers in mid-November, the Cowboys lost three of five games. They blew a three-game lead for home-field advantage. It took a terrific, third- down catch by Kevin Williams to key a field-goal drive that barely beat the New York Giants in December in the next-to-last game of the regular season.

And then, finally, the pieces began to fall into place.

The 49ers lost to Atlanta, and the Cowboys got home-field advantage. The two teams Dallas feared the most in the playoffs because of matchup problems, first Detroit and then San Francisco, were eliminated by Philadelphia and Green Bay, respectively. No one ever said a little luck wouldn't help. And suddenly, the Cowboys are the team of the '90s again.